one flowfirst
AboutThe short versionTwenty years, and nine things that actually run.

Twenty years of decidingwhat to build, andwhat to cut.

That's the short version. Here's why it matters to you, which is the only reason it's worth reading.

OneWhoLong enough to have been wrong often enough.

Two decades in product and design

Twenty plus years spent working out what a product should be, mostly by watching people fail to use things that looked great on a slide.

What that means for you: when you describe your idea, you're talking to someone who has seen a lot of versions of it, including the ones that quietly didn't work and why.

To fill

Your photo. Plain background, the way you’d appear on the call itself.

To fill

Your name, with one line under it in your own words. The site says “I” on every page and the intake asks eleven personal questions — the person asking should be the one detail that isn’t missing. A link that proves you exist (LinkedIn or similar) belongs here too.

TwoWhyThe gap between designed and real closed.

Why I work this way

For most of those years there was a gap between "designed" and "real." A design could be right and still take months and a team before anyone found out. So a founder with an idea had exactly two options: pay a lot to find out, or don't find out.

That gap closed. Building something real enough to test is now days, not quarters, and nine working apps in the last few months is what proved it to me rather than a claim someone made online.

What that means for you: the reality check comes first, and it's cheap enough that hearing "no" is still a good day.

ThreeHonestyIt's structural, not a marketing line.

Why the honesty isn't a line

If the money were in the build, "you should build this" would be the profitable answer to every question, and you'd never quite know whether you were hearing judgment or a quote.

Here the value is the clarity. That makes "don't build this" a perfectly good outcome, and it's the only arrangement in which the advice is worth anything.

What that means for you: you can take the answer at face value, including the one you didn't want.

FourHow I workSmall, scoped, real.

How I work

  • Small. One idea, one flow, one question at a time. Anything bigger is a way of avoiding the question.
  • Scoped. Fixed price, clean start and end. No hourly anything, no meter running, no scope quietly growing.
  • Real. Working software, not slides. People behave differently in front of a thing that works, and that difference is the whole point.
  • Honest about where the value stops. When the work grows past what one person should handle, you'll hear that, plus help handing it to the right team.

Not hundreds of clients. Twenty years and nine things that run.

NextStep oneTen minutes of questions, then a reply from a person.

Let's find out if your idea is real

Ten minutes of questions, in your own words, then a straight read on whether this fits. The answers are yours to keep either way.

Tell me about your idea

Here it is. It’s yours either way.

Nothing has been sent yet — this site has no server to send it to, and a form that says “sent” when it means “discarded” is worse than no form. Copy it or open it in your mail app, and it reaches me the moment you hit send. Keep a copy either way: the answers are more use to you than they are to me.

  1. A few questions about your idea.

    About ten minutes if you take your time. There are no right answers and none of this is a test — a rough answer is more use to me than a polished one.

    Only the idea and your email are needed. Skip anything you’d rather say out loud. It saves as you go, so you can close this and come back. Nothing leaves your browser until you choose to send it at the end.

  2. One or two sentences. Rough is fine — this is not a pitch.

    A sentence is enough, but it needs to be a sentence.

  3. Not everyone. The narrower you can make this, the more useful the two weeks are.
  4. Whatever you’d be replacing, even if it’s a spreadsheet, a WhatsApp thread, or nothing.

  5. This is the one the two weeks gets built around.

    The one thing that, if it turned out false, would make the rest pointless.

  6. Halfway. Now the useful part.

    It’s usually not the part that’s hardest to build.

  7. This one does the most work.

    A number, a behaviour, anything you could actually watch happen.

  8. An honest answer here is worth more than a polite one.

  9. A doc, a note, a conversation you keep having.
  10. A date, a competitor, money running out, a person waiting on you. Or none.

  11. Nearly there. Pick what is true today.

    What do you want out of the two weeks? Optional

  12. Last one.

    Where should I send my reply?

    I read every one of these myself. No scoring, no auto-reply, nothing in between.

    Please add your name so I know who I’m talking to.

    Please enter an email address I can reply to.

Your answers stay in this browser until you send them, and are used to reply to you about this call and nothing else. No list, no sequence.